One day of vacation, at the end of the 1950s, the Bolloré brothers argued in the family villa of Beg-Meil, at the end of Finistère. “Stay in your room, Vincent!” Kindly orders Michel-Yves, seven years the eldest, to the future fourteenth fortune of France. Jacques Grange, the best friend of the “big” of the siblings of four, attends the scene. The one whom Monique, the mother, nicknamed “the fifth child” remembers the side “curious about everything” of the youngest, always on the heels of the older ones, already attentive to the sentences which mention the 51% of the shares of a subsidiary. Despite appearances, the guest, now 77 years old, remains above all marked by the cohesion that binds this tribe. In summer, the whole family, from grandparents to cousins, gathers in this superb building acquired at the end of the 1920s, at the time of the splendor of the paper company which made Bolloré one of the richest lines. of France. There is in particular the aunt Jacqueline, hostess of Léon Blum for a few weeks, in 1947, in this same residence. There is Uncle Gwenn-Aël, a great resistant member of the Kieffer commando, who became CEO of the very right-wing editions of the Round Table, who spends a lot of his time on the other side of the shore, on the island of Loch ‘, property of the clan. This very pious man is one of the heroes of Vincent Bolloré, who likes to tell the glory of “uncle Gwenn”. “The Bolloré family has always been very, very family. Their entrepreneurial side is also a way of showing that the family continues”, analyzes today the false “fifth” offspring, who has become a world-famous interior designer.
Vincent Bolloré has always moved forward with this heritage and this objective: to restore the luster of his family, damaged in the 1970s, when his father Michel, ruined, almost lost the company. “I have the weight of 185 years of history on my shoulders, and I tell myself that it must not stop (…) I am only the link in a chain and I must to pass it on to a seventh generation”, he confided to his biographer Jean Bothorel, fifteen years ago, since the group will celebrate its two hundred years on February 17, the day on which the patriarch will officially retire. “I was as if inhabited by a kind of dynastic feeling”, also told the billionaire to Christophe Labarde, author of Big Beasts (Plon, 2021), about his beginnings. When we ask his brother Michel-Yves about family wealth, he too begins by recalling this painful past. “It has not always been the case”, slips to the Express the entrepreneur born in 1945. But revenge and the euros in the bank are not enough for the happiness of the richest Bolloré, as he confided to his friend Bernard Poignant, then deputy and mayor of Quimper, during a plane trip in the early 2000s: “You, when you arrive before the good Lord, you will have many good things to tell. Me, I will have a lot of money stories”.
“Living and active faith”
Coquetry of the financier who does not want to pass for a raptor? Not only. In the Bolloré code of honor, social success also involves defending certain values. “On your knees before God, standing before men”, chants the motto of the family, unchanged since 1789, which the boss of Vivendi reminds anyone who will listen.
René Bolloré, the grandfather with a brilliant flair, the tutelary figure who successfully invested in Bible paper and cigarette paper known as OCB for Odet-Cascadec-Bolloré, intertwined his convictions and his business all his life. In Ergué-Gabéric, at the group’s historic headquarters, a Kannadig, that is to say a parish bulletin dated 1928, recently found by the local association Arkaé, mentions his commitment: “Animated by a lively and active faith , Mr. Bolloré pays special attention to the religious and moral interests of his workers. He has endowed his Odet factory with a beautiful chapel, one of the most beautiful religious buildings in the Quimper area. mass is said four times a week, and all the workers attend with great devotion”. Gwenn-Aël Bolloré also described his father to Jean Bothorel as “a progressive Christian with his employees, a traditionalist Christian with the priests of Ergué-Gabéric and the surrounding parishes”.
Another story, which denotes a strong political commitment, went through his three generations of descendants: in 1907, René Bolloré and his cousin Eugène bought the premises of Likès, the large college in Quimper, run by the Brothers of the Christian Schools and struck by the anti-congregational law of 1904. Wanted by the very secular Emile Combes to drive out the religious communities of France, this text had the effect of obliging the denominational schools to sell their goods, with prohibition to yield them to the Church . René and Eugène acquired the place in their name, before… renting it to the bishopric of Quimper, which set up its minor seminary there. Or how, in a sleight of hand, to circumvent the legislation to help local religious. The boss of the group also built Christian schools in Lestonan, in 1928 and 1929.
Michel-Yves, the pious
Today, the example has been taken up by Michel-Yves, who has created three private schools, including the girls’ college Les Vignes, in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine), in connection with Opus Dei, of which he is a member. Last October, the eldest, perhaps the most devout Catholic in the family, published God, science, evidence, an essay that intends to demonstrate the existence of a creator of the universe, with many examples, such as the “miracle of the sun” of Fatima, in Portugal, in 1917, which would have no convincing rational explanation. Vincent Bolloré “appreciated” the book, his brother tells us. In doing so, the writer this time followed in the footsteps of Gwenn-Aël Bolloré, who published, in 1958, Interrupted remarksa collection of somewhat esoteric thoughts, where one can read amusing odes to religious practice: “Faith is a motorbike, you let yourself be carried along without fatigue. While intelligence, goodwill and reasoning are bicycles: you have to pedaling and the hills are not lacking”.
Vincent Bolloré lacks neither piety nor family loyalty. Every January 16, he has a mass given in honor of the death of René Bolloré at the manor of Odet, the other Finistère residence of the line, in Ergué-Gabéric. “In the end, you are only ever part of your family, your religion and your village”, Jean Bothorel heard him say. He also multiplied religious investments, such as this Foyer Jean Bosco, located in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, which he acquired for 70 million euros, before entrusting its management to his confessor, Abbé Gabriel Grimaud. “A traditional priest, but not a fundamentalist”, specifies Bernard Poignant. In 2018, he wanted to buy the weekly France Catholique, created in the interwar period to bring the conservative contradiction to the left. “It was lying on the table at my grandparents and my parents,” he claimed internally.
“The concern expressed by Eric Zemmour, Vincent shares it completely”
Above all, for a handful of years, the tycoon seems to see in the media that he holds more than an industrial project. The inflation of programs linked to Christianity, such as this August 15, 2021, Assumption Day, where ten hours of programs are devoted to the Catholic religion on C8, or the place left to identity themes on Cnews raise eyebrows, knowing that the boss does not hesitate to call the leaders of the Canal+ group himself. “Vincent was certainly much more moderate liberal twenty years ago. He remains liberal but worried about French society. The concern expressed by Eric Zemmour, Vincent shares it completely”, confided to us Gérard Longuet, his friend and ex-beau -brother, a few months ago.
Some recall that in 1987, Vincent Bolloré had already entered the capital of the editions of the Round Table, alongside his uncle, self-proclaimed “former Gaullist who had simply become a Free Frenchman”, as he wrote in his Parallel memories (Editions Jean Picollec, 1996). “Tonton Gwenn” was also a close friend of pro-OAS Georges Bidault and Jacques Soustelle, and the favorite publisher of supporters of French Algeria. At the time, the tycoon in the making, who will be elected a few months later “manager of the year”, had placed Jean Picollec, a former militant of the neo-fascist movement Ordre Nouveau, known for having published… the Nazi Léon Degrelle or Roland Gaucher, ex-collaborator and co-founder of the National Front. An episode without a future. In the 1980s, the entrepreneur also frequented many politicians from different backgrounds, such as Bernard Poignant or Nicolas Sarkozy, or the liberal-conservatives of the Groupe d’Action et de Liaison des Libéraux, a small group of which Alain Madelin was a member. , in front of which he will work.
Today, the relative of Nicolas Sarkozy would he have gone to the extreme right? His brother Michel-Yves refutes the idea to the Express: “Vincent has always been like me, that is to say de Gaulle-Pompidou-Giscard-Chirac-Sarkozy”. Eric Zemmour, he assured us that the support of his ex-boss, who recruited him in the presence of Gabriel Grimaud, went beyond the professional framework. “He wants to bequeath to his children and his grandchildren the France that was bequeathed to him,” he confirmed on January 22 on LCI. According to Mediapart, Chantal Bolloré, his sister, is also one of the presidential candidate’s donors.
Yannick more progressive
As for the children, apart from an attraction to sailing, we know almost nothing about the commitments of Cyrille, who is said to be so close to his father, or to Sébastien and Marie. Yannick Bolloré claims a more “cool” Catholicism, more rooted in modernity than that of his parent. The regulars saw him little at the January 16 ceremony and, if he goes to mass, he admires Pope Francis, while Vincent “feels close to Benedict XVI”, slips Bernard Poignant. Above all, this forties seen at the first meeting of Emmanuel Macron, in July 2016 in Paris, made his difference heard on social networks. “A moment of history,” he tweeted in English on January 20, 2021, with a screenshot of Kamala Harris being elected as the Democratic Vice President of the United States. It’s hard not to see a subtle sign for his father, who wanted to make Cnews a French equivalent of Fox News, the conservative channel adored by Donald Trump. On May 26, 2019, the day of the European elections, Yannick Bolloré sent another double-trigger message: “I am very proud to be European. Moving forward together is the best and only way forward, believe me”, said tweeted – in English, again – the CEO.
Havas executives still assure that he never pushed the slightest ideological orientation internally. Only profitability matters. In the short term, the official retirement of Vincent Bolloré, this February 17, should however not change much in the ideological influence which weighs on the most exposed media of the group. Firstly because the conservative turn of Cnews is proving to be a success on an industrial level. Above all, if some of his friends imagine him investing more in his Christian charitable activities, none of them envisage him abandoning his media flagships. “He won’t be absent, that’s for sure”, understates Bernard Poignant. After all, Vincent Bolloré has never had operational functions at Cnews or C8. His personal legitimacy was enough for him. It will remain, for a time that is impossible to measure today.